I first visited the Galapagos islands when I was 18 years old. At that moment I decided that I wanted to study evolutionary biology. After completing my B.Sc. in Biology at McGill University, I started doing research on the Galapagos islands, first for my M.Sc. and then later for my Ph.D. In total I have spent over 2 years on the islands, collecting samples and data throughout the archipelago. During my Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University I started working on Galapagos endemic land snails, arguably one of the most remarkable groups of species on these islands. During my postdoctoral work at the University of Austin in Texas, I collaborated with Dan Bolnick conducting experimental work with lab populations of flour beetles. I tested ideas related to the process of diversification that cannot be addressed in the field. While at UT Austin I also worked with Mark Kirkpatrick and Mathew Leibold, with whom I have ongoing collaborations. Lastly, I spent slightly more than a year at University of California Berkeley, working in collaboration with Bree Rosenblum on the evolutionary convergence of lizards and terrestrial invertebrates in WhiteSands New Mexico.

Parent, CE, A Caccone, and K Petren. 2008. Colonization and diversification of Galápagos terrestrial fauna: a phylogenetic and biogeographical synthesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 363: 3347-3361.